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In a previous blog post, I discussed in some detail thinking patterns and the difficulty that we may have in changing old patterns, especially ones that don't work very well for us. These are patterns that we may have learned as a child or as a young adult. Perhaps at that time in our life, these ways of thinking helped us to manage a situation, perhaps a difficult situation. As time has gone on, we continue to make use of these ways of thinking until they become habit.
Faulty ways of thinking are often more likely to occur when we feel stressed. Eric Byrne, in his book, Games People Play, discussed some of these as dirty fighting tactics that couples use in an argument. As Byrne pointed out, they usually only serve the purpose of putting the person using them in a one-up position over the person that they are being used on. Unfortunately, this tends not to make things any better. Indeed, it usually makes things worse. The person who has just been put down may struggle to regain balance by making use of a similar technique, such as minimization, to discount the other person's argument.
As anyone knows who has worked with someone abusing substances, denial and minimization are two of the ways of thinking that allow an individual to continue their addictive behavior. Minimization involves discounting or minimizing either the positive or the negative elements of a situation. We do not have to be an alcoholic to make use of this way of thinking. If we lack confidence in ourselves, we may minimize our accomplishments. Unfortunately, this only continues to keep us from building confidence in ourselves.
Another thinking trap involves jumping to conclusions. Conclusions that we jump to quickly are often based upon assumptions about a person or a situation which we have often harbored for a long time. These assumptions or conclusions are usually based on very few facts and may discourage us from trusting others, seeing and exercising new possibilities in our lives or deepening our relationships.
Another faulty thinking trap is the proverbial "making a mountain out of a molehill." Exaggeration, magnification. Again, this pattern of thinking compliments other faulty thinking patterns, such as catastrophic thinking and over-generalization.
As I have indicated, many of these patterns of thinking are fueled by emotion. They are often based on what is referred to as the logic of emotion or emotional reasoning. With emotional reasoning we may assume that the way we feel is the way things really are. We don't assume that others may see things differently and may not be caught up in the same feelings. We may get quite angry with other people when they do not respond to a situation the way we have responded and the way we are convinced they should respond.
To change faulty thinking patterns we must first recognize that they are irrational ways of thinking that do not work well for us in the long run. Recognizing them for what they are leads to the second step which is to begin to dispute them and refuse to make use of them. Since they are often well practiced thinking habits, the process of change requires us to question the way we are looking at situations and to force ourselves to be more flexible and to look at other possible ways of thinking of and responding to a situation.
